


A game of two halves

by seven7stars



Series: The Beautiful Game [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Football, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Football | Soccer, M/M, Not-so-casual Sex, Pining, Porn with Feelings, The pining goes into extra time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:13:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29132376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seven7stars/pseuds/seven7stars
Summary: Two long weeks after they last met in a darkened hotel room, the star strikers of Akielos F.C. and Vere Wanderers are due to collide again, both on and off the pitch.(Damen's pining has gone into extra time, but at least he has the home advantange...)
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Series: The Beautiful Game [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133363
Comments: 44
Kudos: 132





	A game of two halves

**Author's Note:**

> This fic follows on from [Out of my league](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28584498), and is set two weeks later. If you enjoyed the first part of this AU, I hope you like what happens next. <3

It’s strange how time can twist itself.

A week is so often gone in an instant, like sand slipping between open fingers — other times a day feels like wading through quicksand, sinking a treacherous inch for every two you take. It’s never straight forward, never predictable.

Damen hasn’t known time to pass as slowly as these past two weeks. What should have been a handful of days has felt like a month, a year, an age. An endless wait without end. Still, time _did_ pass — it’s something that he allows now to slip into the past tense. _Finally._

Today is what he’s been living for. What he has fixed his sights upon since the moment he left a lacklustre Veretian hotel room and boarded a bus for home.

 _This_ , he thinks, sitting back on his brand new sofa and staring at the ceiling. Nearly everything in his apartment is new; one way to pass surly mornings, he’s found, is internet shopping. _This is earnt time. With the aftermath comes reward._

He rolls his shoulders, tension easing from his body. 

_Slowly, slowly, we inched towards this._

Damen _should_ feel good. Today was a great win — if he holds his breath he can hear the celebrations in Ios, beyond windows and open balcony doors. Music and fireworks lighting up the coastline long into the night. Just when he thinks it’s dying down, somebody else launches into a song heard at the football ground earlier today, and the party begins again. A refrain of triumph.

The headlines will be kind tomorrow. He can picture it now:

He was focused, able to put the misery of last time behind him. Walking out into the pitch, he’d felt the dread and nerves of an amateur — but football is a game of two halves. He channelled that previous loss and let the crowd lift him, urging him towards the winning goal. When the whistle was blown at full-time, it was he who sank to his knees in victory, and not his opponent.

Make no mistake — all will be red and gold in Ios tonight.

And yet in Damen’s mind, he sees only navy and silver.

He checks the time — his wristwatch was a generous gift from their team’s chief sponsor, its leather strap softened against the bronze of his wrist. He wears the watch in public because he’s paid to, and he wears it now because it removes the temptation of checking his phone every five seconds. It also lessens the guilt of Nikandros’s increasingly frantic voicemails.

 _Damen, it’s our greatest win of the season_ — _where are you?_

_The team used to be your everything._

He feels a stab of unease, recalling the messages he’s failed to return since sneaking away. Nik doesn’t know that Damen has lived in hot anticipation for this day, and not only because it meant redemption on the pitch.

Last week, Nikandros accused Damen of having an affair. An unnamed someone at the club — and Damen supposes it’s true. He only failed to correctly surmise _which_ club. Each time his mind drifts, it clouds with blue instead of red.

 _Laurent_ , he thinks, feeling another urge to check his phone. It’s not only Nik’s judgment he’s anxious about — it’s the radio silence from his nemesis-turned-lover.

_Again. He really needs to work on his communication skills._

At present, Damen’s phone lies under a cushion on an armchair, and though it tugs at his trickling patience, he resists rising to retrieve it. This time.

He suspects Laurent knows exactly what he’s doing, each time he neglects to send a text. He can only imagine the warped pleasure it brings him, especially tonight.

Laurent of Vere hates to lose, and the result will burn. Three-two, the match crumbling in its closing minutes. Damen wonders if it’s better for his ongoing health and safety if they _don’t_ meet tonight.

 _He’ll come,_ he tells himself for the thousandth time, immediately regretting where his mind goes. Back to Thrace, to Marshe, to Bazal — all the ways in which Laurent did indeed come. _He might be terrible at texting back, but we agreed. We promised._

Despite having known Laurent intimately on more occasions than Damen can count, he readily admits he has no idea what Vere’s star striker might be thinking at any given moment.

 _He might’ve decided against it when my goal slid into the back of the net. No, sorry, I won’t be debasing myself with an Akielon tonight_ — _is there a passing Patran I might avail myself of, instead?_

Damen’s lip curls. Even his imagination is against him. Still, they _had_ agreed — of that there was no question. A promise made as kisses were traded, in night’s darkest moments. He had brushed a thumb over Laurent’s lower lip, accepting his gasp as acquiescence.

_Stay with me in Ios. Would you like that?_

_Yes, Damen. Yes, yes, yes._

In hindsight, Laurent might have been agreeing only to the grind of Damen’s cock inside him. He probably would have agreed to a lap dance from Makedon, in such a state.

With each painful minute that limps by, without his phone lighting into life or word from the security guard downstairs, his hope falters. Each chorus of _he’ll be here_ is followed by an ominous _he might not._

He’d hoped to move past this. The longing, the flickering doubts. This is the part he hates most keenly — the sudden, suffocating understanding that whilst he’s aware of what their arrangement means to _him,_ he’s unsure of how Laurent views it. Neither of them have spelt it out in the narrow space between them, when they break apart after another forbidden kiss.

_I didn’t take it well when Akielos lost. It was a sulk for the ages._

_And those fucking shorts..._

Today, Laurent — who is impressively inscrutable, even in the throes of orgasm — was a closed book. He limped off the pitch in the seventy-fifth minute, substituted for a defender so that Vere might shore up their goal and coast to a draw. It was a costly tactic — Damen easily overpowered the new arrival, and scored the winner in the eighty-ninth minute.

Damen looked over as he hooked the ball into the net. If anyone caught the moment on camera, they’ll chalk it up to him mocking his rivals — jeering Vere’s foolishness. But really, Damen was concerned — Laurent was clutching his shoulder as he left, having clashed heavily with one of the Akielon defenders. It’s not often that Laurent lets emotions reach his face whilst playing, and Damen had looked for tells.

_Are you hurt? Are you confined to a bed in an anonymous hotel room, bruised and resentful?_

Laurent had glanced back once as he left the field, ignoring his manager’s outstretched hand as it angled for a consolatory high-five. And then he was gone down the tunnel, his surname the last thing to fade from sight.

Damen sighs. Again. He’s done a lot of sighing lately

He has something planned for tonight — a confession. He wants to tell Laurent how he feels. Not the usual midnight whispers they’ve exchanged countless times before — _Laurent, I want you. I need to be inside you. Please take these flimsy words about sex as a substitute for what I actually mean to say._

These whispers are made of more heart than body.

He hopes, by the end of the night, to have found the balls ( _ha!_ ) to ask Laurent out to breakfast. A date in secrecy, but a date nonetheless. It’s why he found the courage to invite him here, risking being caught in a way that’s truly undeniable. Damen cannot think of any excuse he could give for inviting The Enemy to his home, the night after a crucial league match. If Laurent is seen arriving or leaving, looking as tousled and well-fucked as he usually does once Damen’s through with him, their facade will be shattered. An entire continent will be baying for blood and answers, not particularly caring which comes first (or in greater quantity).

 _He can’t be seen._ And then, _he won’t be._ _If there’s one man alive who can keep a secret through sheer stubbornness alone, it’s Laurent._

He completes an anxious circuit of his living room, still not submitting to the siren song of his phone. He steps over an expensive rug he doesn’t remember buying, glances over shelves of unread books. He’s a stranger in Ios for much of the year — he feels as though his life’s one true constant is his suitcase. But tonight he wants it to feel like home.

Every moment not spent in training has been lost in contemplation of what it might be like, speaking freely without worry for who’s listening through thin hotel walls. Undressing Laurent here, in his own bedroom. Pulling him into a kiss beneath this ceiling, between those sheets. Sprawling on cotton with Laurent beside him.

Waking up with the sun spilling through wide-open balcony doors, the gulls swooping above the sea as their only herald.

If it doesn’t happen tonight, another chance might not come for months — after this, Vere Wanderers will be participating in the Vaskian Association Cup, and Laurent will be lost to unfamiliar lands. Waking in strange beds without Damen. They’ve gone a month without seeing each other before — Damen doesn’t like it, doesn’t enjoy the prospect of Laurent spending his nights with others, even if they are only teammates and staff.

He keeps things light, plays it cool. He says nothing that might threaten the arrangement.

_Not anymore. I can’t let him go again. Not without him knowing._

Is it insensitive, on the day of Vere’s crushing loss, to ask their prince to elope with him? To offer up his heart, words Damen has only uttered aloud to his reflection: _I like you, Laurent. I don’t want this to only be fucking, and leaving, and sneaking around. I want to be_ with _you. I want to give you every courtesy and care that you deserve._

He stands and paces, paces, paces. You can mark the map of where his mind has been in the paths that wind through carpet.

Laurent despises losing, but he’s not a sore loser; Damen knows this. He’s been left _sore_ plenty of times, but not because of a football result. Laurent takes defeat in stride, and he’ll be grateful to Damen for his honesty. He would want the truth, even if it brings an end to their meetings.

Even if it ruins everything.

Damen has considered that he might be making a mistake. They’ve never, in their nights together, veered into serious _“is this a relationship?”_ conversation. Damen would guess that of the things uttered during those nights, a good ninety-percent of it consists of his own name, moaned back at him from various exciting positions.

He tried to fight them, _the feelings_. He tried to keep it skin deep.

But things are different. The hastily arranged meetings, clandestine collisions — it was adding up to a tangled equation he was unable to solve. Damen has always hated unnecessary maths.

He sees that the solution is honesty. Disclosure, and then the fallout.

Damen gives up on his pacing, crossing to the kitchen to fill a glass with water and knock it back. 

He’d thought Laurent might refuse to meet here, to stand beneath soft lighting and feel the breeze from the balcony. They’d have to settle for another hotel on the outskirts of town, far from prying eyes. But when he’d suggested it, blowing hair off Laurent’s cheek, he’d said _yes, yes, Damen. Your bed. Your place. Two weeks._

In hindsight, it was another questionable thing to agree to. Damen was quite sure he’d had Laurent spread out on the room’s drab sofa at the time, his cock buried halfway back to Ios. Again, Laurent likely would’ve agreed to anything — a retaliatory fuck with the blinds open, a free transfer to Akielos F.C.

But when he was weak enough to follow up by text, either to confirm or put himself out of his misery, Laurent had replied immediately:

_Yes. I’ll be there._

Then, five minutes later:

_I can’t wait._

It’s a song he’s been doomed to sing alone, in the days between then and now.

_Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t..._

It’s not until the car pulls silently through the gates outside, wheels betraying a stranger’s presence as pavement turns to gravel, that Damen allows himself to believe.

_He’s here. He came._

_Now act like you once knew what dignity was, or you’ll frighten him off._

He puts down the glass, lighting candles in the living room to best illuminate the corners Damen would like to linger in. He checks on the Champagne, balanced in an ice bucket — it’s mostly for show, as he’s never known Laurent to be in the mood to drink after a loss. The curtains are drawn to block out the world…

...and he’s ready. Finally.

_He’s here._

Damen offered his most trusted driver to Laurent. _Pallas will pick you up and bring you to me_ — _he’s done far stranger things for money._ And there’s no doubt his security detail will remain loyal — they’ve been offered an alarmingly generous bonus for their ongoing discretion. It was another idea he’d worried Laurent might resist, but he’d been cooperative.

_Of course. I’ll be waiting._

_If I can._

The car outside slows to a halt in the car park, lights dipped and fading. Damen lets silk curtains slip through his fingers as he steps back from the window, a curl of anticipation tangling with the nerves he’s come to know so well.

Next to the apartment door, a panel lights up. Damen almost trips over himself in his haste — someone’s pressing the intercom downstairs, asking to be admitted. Damen slipped the building’s security guard a week’s wages to turn a blind eye to any late-night guests following the Akielos-Vere match — nothing recorded in the sign-in book, no errant flashes of blond captured on camera. Damen listens to a tinny voice deliver the good news from ten storeys down — _“Damianos, your guest is here. Should I send him up?”_

_Him._

_Yes._

“Immediately. Thank you.”

Damen understands the risk of discovery increases with each new face involved in his schemes. The thought doesn’t thrill him. He would give his best pair of shin pads to walk with Laurent in the sunshine, not as foes, but as familiars — uncaring for the opinions of others.

“Stop worrying,” he mutters to nothing, to no one, to the empty room. “Save the thinking for tomorrow.”

_Keep your head in the game._

It’s an age before the door to his apartment is knocked, and even then, he doesn’t trust himself to open it. Beyond the door is a narrow hallway — Damen has the penthouse, so there are no neighbours to contend with. Only lift doors and a well-paid security guard. He stands still and listens as footsteps fade, like his heartbeat.

 _Perfect,_ he thinks, watching a shadow shift beneath the door. It’s just like that night two weeks ago. _I want this to be perfect._

A sound peals from across the room — his phone, that final anchor before he dives off the edge. It’s Nikandros again — an attempt to sway him from the path he’s on. _Damanios, tonight is for celebration! I’m personally offended you’d rather lock yourself away than come into Ios with your teammates._ The lies Damen has told to keep his oldest friend at bay. He imagines what this new voicemail might say.

_“If you don’t show your face in at least one bar tonight, there’ll be talk. Again.”_

_“I know you have someone, Damen. I might not know their name, but your cock is the only thing you’d put before the team. Tell me, is it someone from home?”_

He hopes the team won’t spare him further thought — let the celebrations take over. He waits for the phone drift into silence before he crosses to the door.

One deep breath, and he pulls it open — and at the sight found there, he exhales in a rush. Footsteps move from hallway to sanctuary, and Damen lets the door close again, hands moving automatically to drive the bolt home.

“Ah, so you’re not going to assault me with footwear tonight?”

“What?” he asks, immediately on the back foot.

“In Vere,” comes the reply. A waft of lavender, spritzed across wrists. “There I was, innocently hiding in your bathroom, only to be confronted by a beast of a man wielding a _shoe_ , of all things.”

Damen rolls his eyes, checking the lock.

“Nice to see you, too.”

“Of course it is. I’m a delight.”

 _We’ll have to face it one day,_ Damen thinks, as he trails his guest across plush carpet (new, like everything else). Shoes are kicked off, bare feet sinking into a cream-coloured rug he barely glanced at before ordering. _My teammates, and his. But tonight, we can have this. Ours to defend._

Laurent of Vere Wanderers stands in the middle of his living room, peering around at the walls. Damen knows how it looks — tasteful, sparse, modern. A touch impersonal, given that he’s hidden away literally everything he owns, but it’s clean. An open space to relax in.

“I thought Akielos would be able to afford better accommodations for their players,” Laurent says slyly. Damen doesn’t grace this with a response; he’s back in the hotel room again, pulling at a waistband with his teeth.

He watches Laurent carefully. It’s a habit.

“You’re not limping.”

Damen’s voice sounds rough. Since escaping the football ground, he’s only briefly spoken to Nik, and that was hours ago. He declined all post-match interviews, feigning a victory migraine (not a thing, apparently). The cameras followed his jubilant teammates, allowing him to sneak off unseen and unheard.

Laurent stiffens, pinching the cuffs of his powder blue jumper. Then he continues his lap of the living room, squinting up at Damen’s deliberately soulless decorations.

“Why would I be limping? A preemptive hobble for what you're going to do to me? Honestly, your imagination is a treat.”

Laurent’s eyes flick down to the sofa, dancing over a selection of carefully careless magazines, scattered on the coffee table. _Golf, economics, nothing resembling my personality._

“You limped off the pitch earlier. I thought you were —”

“Oh, come off it. Have you never been substituted against your will? It was all for show.”

Damen frowns. _Has_ he ever been taken off the pitch unwillingly? _Would_ he limp for dramatic effect?

Quietly, he’s relieved that Laurent wasn’t seriously hurt. He waits for another scathing remark to pass those lips he so craves, but instead Laurent surprises him by lowering himself onto the rug. He sits cross-legged in a casual jumper and jeans, smirking up at Damen.

Damen takes him in. No coat, no signs of the outside — is he planning on staying the night, or are his belongings in the car outside, engine left running to ensure a swift escape? He watches Laurent’s toes curl, eyes closing in simple pleasure.

“Your shoulder. You were holding it.”

Blue eyes shoot open. “Were you paying _any_ attention to the match, or was I the only spectacle you partook in today?”

Damen wets his lips, unsure how to answer. Laurent has always liked this part best — the talking, the teasing. Inching towards a cliff edge that Damen can’t foresee until he’s already upon it, leaning into the abyss.

“So we’re not going to talk about injuries.”

“No,” Laurent replies. “Definitely not.”

Damen suspects he must be bruises held together with pride, by this point. It’s a wonder he didn’t resign himself to an ice bath. Instead he’s here, through the ache of the day.

Damen feels something in his chest, and fears it might be hope.

“Can I get you a drink?”

It seems a good place to start. Damen had the fridge stocked with mineral water, cordials, juices — more than a reasonable person could work through alone. Sometimes, Damen finds his desperation startling.

Vere’s prized possession stretches his legs, toes wiggling. Laurent tips his head back and Damen loses himself in the dip of his neck, the promise of cream leading into his shirt collar. _White beneath blue. He’s in his own colours this time._

Damen recognises the shirt. It’s one he bought for Laurent and had shipped to Vere without a return label. A risky gift it thrills him to see again.

“Or your coat,” he offers, remembering too late that Laurent isn’t wearing one. “I could...take it.”

An eyebrow, arching cruelly. Blue eyes, marking his own.

“Undressing me already?”

Damen winces. “Sorry, I’m…”

_I’m what, terrified of what might happen? Even more afraid of what might not?_

Laurent looks up at him, lips lifting in a smile. “Whatever you are, I am, too.”

Then he peels off the blue jumper, gifting Damen a tantalising glimpse of skin before the white shirt falls back into place. He throws and Damen catches it, a sleeve swiping at his face. Laurent continues to wear that same small smile.

“What?” Damen asks, folding the jumper carefully and placing it on a chair. “Did you expect me to drop it?”

Laurent stretches back, arms sinking into the rug. He holds himself with a slight stiffness — he’s trying not to put weight on one side. It takes all of Damen’s wavering resolve to keep his eyes on Laurent’s face and not go wandering, seeking the hurt.

_Your shoulder. The need to be strong at all times._

“I thought you might be tired after your glorious victory today,” Laurent is saying. Playful, poised. “All that _running_ , Damianos! Tell me truthfully, would you run so far for your own life? Your team’s first shot at goal — you practically _cartwheeled_ to get to the ball ahead of me. And here you are, so concerned about my condition.”

His voice is velvet, a threat Damen would love to address. Before he can help himself he’s closing the space between them, dropping to his knees on the rug.

Laurent’s head tips back further, his face momentarily painted with want, before adjusting. “You worry too much.”

Damen breathes in a heady mix of lavender, and something sweeter that lurks beneath. Something wholly Laurent. “You _don’t_. Your shoulder, is it —”

Laurent turns, pulling himself up and away from the table, the blue of his eyes in stark contrast with Damen’s sterile decor.

“It’s nothing. My shoulder, my leg — all is well.” Laurent unfastens the first three buttons on his shirt and slides it to one side, exposing the skin across his collarbones. Damen’s eyes narrow as he takes in a bruise, mottled purple and green.

“That is _not_ nothing.”

Damen feels a prickling coil at the thought of his teammate — Naos? That new signing, Isander? — pulling Laurent to the grass. It had been a yellow card offence, though presently, Damen sees red.

“A bruise, nothing more. It isn’t me you should be fretting over — did you see what I called you online, after the match?”

Damen frowns. _I don’t like that colour on you._

“You called me a vicious brute.” He’d stared at his phone, waiting for the words to morph into something complimentary. They didn’t.

“Was I wrong? You nearly broke that poor boy’s ankle after I was taken off.”

It’s true. This is their rivalry now — barbed comments and pretend feuds via social media. Laurent gets to put his vicious mouth to use, though not in the way Damen prefers.

He watches where the bruise lingers, shrouded in silk. He’s taken pleasure in leaving marks of his own across that same skin, but the sight of this doesn’t please him. Ugly thumbprints, driven into porcelain.

Laurent straightens his shirt, pristine once again. There’s no need for him to keep the walls up, not when it’s only the two of them, but it takes Laurent longer to remember this. Damen watches his face shift into something more relaxed, the leopard in recline.

“It did sting,” he concedes, flushing gently. Damen loves how he looks when he’s blushing, though he’d rather be the cause of it. “Our manager thought it was best that I go off — don’t worry, I gave him an earful in the locker room afterwards.” Their eyes meet, and yes, Damen can imagine exactly how _that_ conversation went. “It’s his reputation that will suffer for the loss, not mine. He wants me fresh for the Vaskian tournament. It's our best chance for silverware now.”

Damen prickles. He hears the echoes of Nikandros in his head, imploring him to join Akielos’s celebrations. 

He would rather be here, on the floor with the enemy, than revelling in a win.

“Vask will be easy work. Those teams do not compare to you.”

Vere play a beautiful game of passing football and set pieces, but it’s Laurent who gives them their ruthless edge.

The smile that appeared earlier has not left Laurent’s face. Not completely. Damen basks in its presence. _If I confessed now, would you still be smiling?_

“We’ll have to work for that first win. Two away losses in a row would be _most_ grievous for our image.”

Damen wonders how the Veretian fans took today, watching their golden prince limp off before full-time. They might have known even then that the title was slipping away. Vere would struggle to hold Akielos to a draw without Laurent driving the counterattack.

“It made a certain amount of sense to take you off,” Damen says diplomatically. He wants to wind gold around his fingertips. “Let your brightest star shine another day.”

“Don’t be absurd — it signed our death warrant! Your lovely Lions in red must have been delighted when my number went up. You finally had a chance of winning the match.”

He’s not entirely wrong; Nikandros had even done a little dance.

Damen wonders distantly if he should fetch some ice. Would Laurent let him do that? Touch him and soothe his aches, teasing knots from stiffened joints. Perhaps he’s already had a massage — Akielos would have offered their visitors such a service. _Only the best for those who enter the Lion’s Den._ Damen dwells on the image of Laurent with one of his coaches, or perhaps a dark-haired Veretian midfielder, standing over him in the locker room…

A heat settles over the room. He looks possessively to where Laurent waits, one elbow leaned on glass. The object of his desire, affection, longing, distilled into one impossible figure.

“I’ll shine again,” Laurent says quietly. “Though not as bright as you, dear champion. Congratulations. I mean it.”

His eyes drop, though not to close — Damen, on his knees, feels himself evaluated for the first time since leaving the pitch. Since getting home he’s taken three anxious showers and changed as many times, settling on smart black pants, a black shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. _If in doubt, trust in the forearms._

Akielos F.C. won today. An indisputable fact. They’re two points away from confirming the title.

So why does Damen feel as though he’s once again anticipating the referee’s whistle?

 _Top of the league. A comfortable four points between us and Vere_ — _even if they defeat all of their remaining opponents, there’s nothing to fear. Vere were the last challenge in our way. Akielos cannot lose._

They’ve won two matches since the loss of two weeks ago. Vere have continued to win, too. But even if their northern foes conduct a flawless denouement to the season, they won’t catch Akielos. The match today will make the difference.

“Thank you,” Damen says, stretching as he stands. “It feels good. When has winning ever felt bad?”

It’s a hollow sentiment. How many times has he lain awake after a win, unable to enjoy anything but the ghost of lips against his own? Skin beneath his fingers he’ll not know in the ways he wants to.

“Of course it feels good,” Laurent says, rising to his feet and crossing to where a shelf hangs, heavy with candles. He passes a palm above flickering flames, blowing them out one by one. “You’ve all but secured the championship. Four points clear...my, but victory looks good on you.”

Damen watches him tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. On the pitch it’s always tied back, high and distracting. Earlier, Damen thought he’d lose his mind with wanting to run his hands through it.

“Second place,” he says now, stepping up behind Laurent. He’s got his hand around a drawer handle, peering into debris Damen worked hard to hide away. “That’s not bad.” He brushes a hand over Laurent’s bruised shoulder, and the flinch that greets him is a lesson in regret.

“This again? It’s a _bruise_.”

“Does it hurt?” he asks quickly. He watches as Laurent rummages, pulling out an unworn scarf (of all the things to buy in Ios), a clock without batteries, a battered paperback romance. The question proves to be of little distraction.

“No. Stop it.” Laurent steps back, hands held out to show his findings. Damen looks at the clutter. “I thought it odd that you lived in an IKEA showroom. This…” Laurent begins, suddenly nervous. Shy, quiet — a world away from his footballing persona. “ _This_ is you. This is what I want to see. You don’t have to hide yourself to impress me.”

Damen swallows. He reaches out, his hand sliding to catch between shoulder blades. Laurent stills, halting his march through Damen’s apartment, picking apart his veneer.

“You like the mess,” Damen says quietly. He hardly dares breathe, in case the moment should break like the one before it. Laurent so rarely calls him Damen — it’s always _Damianos_ , or _the Akielon_. Occasionally, in the heat of a social media rant, he’ll call him a _giant animal._

“I want to see all of you.”

Damen feels a burn steal across his face. “Well, I think we’ve certainly crossed _that_ line before.”

Laurent tosses his head, looks over his shoulder. Damen longs to spend the night wrapped up in that profile, back arching, fingers pressing into sweat-slicked skin.

“I like _you,_ ” Laurent says deliberately. “After everything, Damianos, is there any need for you to hide?”

Damen can’t recall any previous thoughts he might have been suffering. All meaning is reduced to one brilliant premise — _Laurent likes_ me.

_Laurent doesn’t mind the mess in my head._

Damen dares to slide his hand down Laurent’s back, pressing against tired muscle.

“This,” he whispers, wanting to return those words. _I like you too._ “Is this good?”

There’s a moment of resistance before Laurent gives in, his body melting against Damen, hands winding around his waist.

 _That’s it,_ he thinks. _You don’t need to hide, either. I know you. Your body, the way it fits with mine._

“It’s good,” Laurent whispers. “Do you have to wake early tomorrow? Should I get you up?”

Damen lets the double meaning hang in the air between them. “I don’t have to go anywhere. You can stay as late as you like.”

They stand and watch lights shift and shine beyond curtains — a sea view, inches away and yet so far. Damen likes to leave the balcony doors open, though he rarely steps out there — he doesn’t announce when he’s at home, but someone might be watching. There could be a lens out there waiting to ensnare him, held up like a spyglass.

 _Come to bed,_ he wants to say, though part of him wants to draw this out. To make forever from tonight.

“Are you sure I can’t get you a drink?” he asks instead.

“Water would be fine.”

Damen’s throat constricts as he nods, passing through an archway into the kitchen. He looks back as he fumbles for a clean glass, no longer capable of simple actions, watching Laurent linger by the curtains. Damen knows he’s staring; Laurent catches him in the act. A quirked eyebrow, a curled lip.

“Like what you see?”

Damen doesn’t stop himself this time.

“Always.”

He drains the glass of water for himself, remembering the mineral water in the refrigerator.

“That shirt looks nice on you,” he says, leaning in the archway. He holds out a bottle and Laurent takes it, fingernails tapping on plastic.

Laurent bites his bottom lip, an act of war. He twists the cap off his water and drinks deeply.

“You like how it looks?” he asks when he’s done.

He balances the bottle on the nearest inconvenient surface — it should bother Damen, but right now nothing registers. There could be an announcement on television of Akielos F.C. being sold to Vaskian farmers, and he’d accept the news, no questions asked.

“I do.”

Laurent asks, “Would you like to see me without it on?”

Damen is known for his movement on the pitch — the grace and effortless strength that has earnt him countless accolades. He’s the league’s top scorer, the most sought after asset, though it’s inconceivable he could ever be sold or traded.

Suddenly, somehow, he’s sluggish, rendered inept by a question.

If the cameras could catch him, they’d be fighting over the caption rights.

He’s behind Laurent in moments, lips finding the soft skin of the other man’s neck. He bites gently against Laurent’s ear lobe and whispers the words he’s been thinking of for days, with nowhere else for them to go.

“I missed you. I needed to see you.”

Fingers move nimbly, undoing buttons and memorising skin he already knows as his own.

This is a route he needs no map for. A path he’ll always take.

Laurent turns in his arms, and the kiss that greets Damen starts softly before it deepens, arms looping over and under and holding tight, extinguished candles cooling around them. It’s like their first kiss in Lys — Laurent, shy and impossibly sweet, shaking under Damen’s hands.

What Damen wants the kiss to say is this: _Of all the things I’ve wanted, it’s you. Only you._

He recalls a moment from today’s match — twenty minutes into the first half the referee called for a free kick, which Vere sent curling towards the goal. Laurent’s form pressed up against Damen as they huddled together in the wall.

The crowd was roaring for its Lions, and they would answer their faith with three beautiful goals. A win, the promise of a trophy.

Laurent had leant into Damen and whispered in his ear, for only him to hear, _“Will you make me scream like this tonight, I wonder?”_

He swallows the memory. It’s going straight to his cock, pressing hard against his pants.

At least this time there’s no golden lion stitched onto Laurent’s jeans to torment him. He has only an errant star to contend with.

Damen pushes hair off Laurent’s shoulder and places his lips there, where they belong. Laurent shudders, head moving back so that Damen can nip gently at the soft skin under his jaw. It’s all Damen can do to stagger, steering them towards his bedroom where they can lose themselves in cotton sheets, and the tangled escape there offered.

“Oh,” Laurent gasps from a sea of ivory and high thread counts, “won’t you take my mind off today’s _terrible_ loss? I can hardly bear it.”

He’s being ridiculous. Damen plays along, unbuttoning his shirt and enjoying the way Laurent’s eyes track his progress, hovering over his belt buckle. He undresses completely, tossing each piece of unwanted clothing to one side, undoing his efforts to tidy, hide, and disguise. _You don’t have to hide from me,_ Laurent had said. _I want to see you._ The only thing he’s careful with is his watch — he slides it into a drawer in his bedside table, taking the opportunity to pull out a few other more useful items he plans to put to use Lubricant, condoms.

Before that, he has one last pretty lie in mind. A fantasy they’re yet to act out.

Other nights they’ve shared have been frantic — garments tossed aside, followed by a burning need to touch and then consume. Other times it’s teasing — like that last time in a darkened hotel room, Laurent dressed in Damen’s colours. Thumbs beneath a waistband, Damen suitably out of his mind.

This time it’s different — slow, deliberate. There’s no pretence of being anything but what they are.

“Let me show you how it could be,” Damen murmurs, working now on Laurent’s buttons. He’s careful to lift him gently, first to free one arm and then the other. The white shirt is placed with reverence atop Damen’s own. Before he moves his hands to Laurent’s jeans, he places a feather-light kiss _there,_ where the skin begins to darken.

“I’m not made of glass,” Laurent says. A little petulantly, a little impatiently. “You won’t break me.”

Damen continues his slow progress, treating Laurent not as a treasure or a conquest or a prize, but how he wishes him to be seen — as a lover, one he would hold dearly in daylight as well as the dark. Damen’s lips brush again at that sensitive spot on Laurent’s neck, drawing a delightful sound — and then he moves downwards, zigzagging across his chest, careful to skirt the bruise and press kisses along his arms, down his side, in the dip of a hip. He returns to draw his tongue around one nipple and then the next, already pink and hard beneath his tongue. Laurent moans, and Damen holds himself up on his forearms, blowing hot breath over his navel.

“Slowly, then?” Laurent asks, as a car screeches by outside. It’s not enough to bring Damen out of his reverie, or steer him off course. “Is _this_ what you wanted to show me, that you’re capable of a steady pace, and not just wild fucking?”

Damen hushes him with a kiss, and finds it effective.

“You like how I fuck you.”

There’s no argument.

His hands unfasten Laurent’s jeans and slides them down. He shifts to one side, pleased that Laurent’s in the mood to cooperate — he lifts his legs and lets Damen pull the denim all the way off.

Then he sees what’s staring back at him, jaw dropping in what might be utter dismay or baffled arousal. It’s hard to say.

“Are you...are those _Akielos boxer shorts?_ Have you robbed every merchandise stand this side of the Ellosean Sea?”

Laurent’s smile is a shining knife. His hair’s spilt to one side on the pillow like a golden scar. “I was under the impression this does it for you. They sell these on your website, you know — the models are _very_ photogenic.”

Damen frowns. He’s never looked at the team’s website. Why would he need to?

“You bought something off our website?”

“Oh yes,” Laurent replies lightly, running a hand over his thighs. Damen exhales. _So many inappropriate lions._ “You should see it — there’s an inspiring underwear section. In fact, I suspect it might be Nikandros himself modelling the satin —”

“Enough,” Damen snarls, snatching at this latest intrusive thought. _I want only one name in your head._ He realises he’s upending his own plan to go slowly — to make love to Laurent the way he likes, deeply and as if there’s no end.

Undressed, Laurent is no less dangerous than when he’s on the pitch, studs pressing into grass. He smirks and raises a hand, drawing the back of it across Damen’s cheek. He shaved this morning but feels the burn of friction, Laurent’s fingers snagging on skin. He leans down to steal another kiss, pleased to feel Laurent beneath him, hard and legs parting, hands winding around his neck. Damen bends to plant a ritual kiss on his favourite freckle, dipped inside his left thigh. He drags his tongue languidly along Laurent's length, rejoicing in the moan he elicits.

“This is how it could be,” Laurent says, as Damen moves up his body, wrapping a hand first around Laurent’s cock and then his own, sliding them together. There’s more noise from outside — car horns, a shriek of laughter. Damen kisses Laurent’s lower lip.

_All the time. Every day._

“This is how it will be.”

_Each time since the first. Every day, from now._

Time seems to spiral again — one moment the kiss is deepening, Laurent gasping into his mouth as Damen’s hand slides, each answering thrust of hips a reminder that he is no fragile thing. Then the world is turning and it’s Damen on _his_ back, looking up at a haze of gold, Laurent taking his own time to explore. _Learn me, memorise me. All the ways you know me, without knowing._

There’s another slip, and then Laurent sits over Damen with his strong legs squeezing bronze thighs, hands working the length of his cock, eyes lidded in worship. Laurent bites his lip and Damen watches the pinch of teeth over swollen skin, not sure if he’d rather catch that mouth in another kiss, or wrap a hand into gold and guide him down to kiss at something else.

More minutes lost, a brief break in the game to remove a lid from a bottle and wet his fingers. He’s got two of them inside Laurent, pushing up slowly into shuddering resistance as Laurent grinds down onto his hand, a shiver threatening to take them both to full-time earlier than planned.

“Having trouble concentrating?” Damen teases. Laurent still has a fist around Damen’s cock, wrist twisting as his thumb slides over the slick head.

_You look lovely like this._

Damen presses a third finger inside, and Laurent gasps, tipping forward onto his knees. Damen sits up, leaning on one elbow as he pushes in again, feeling tight heat close around his fingers. Laurent’s garbled nonsense spills now into his mouth as they kiss and come apart, hips rolling deliciously.

“Red card offence,” he mutters, holding himself up again, seeking balance. “Anyone would think you don’t want to come.”

"Oh, but I do."

Damen’s fingers slip out of Laurent, obtaining another groan — this time of protest. Damen takes his hips and repositions him, Laurent grasping both the idea and the base of Damen’s cock, shuffling back to hold himself over it.

Laurent looks up, and Damen thinks he’s never seen anything as perfect. His hair a mess, around his face and down his neck. His eyes, glazed and eager. That beautiful red in his cheeks. Laurent slicks Damen with lubricant, and lowers himself with agonising slowness.

Damen closes his eyes. He has to. It’s too much. His hips move automatically, pushing upwards. The heat, the intimacy — that this is with Laurent, and no other. That he could know another person in this way, _this_ person — and it could be only theirs, the world outside a stranger.

They don’t fuck; not this time. That can come later, with the realisation that Laurent doesn’t have to leave to catch a bus, and Damen doesn’t need to wake for training. The morning beyond is theirs, as well as the night. There’ll be chance for urgency later, for gripped wrists and names called in the night.

This time it’s slow. Damen melts as Laurent moves above him, grinding down. He places one hand on a hip, holding Laurent steady as he rides his cock, and the other strokes, bringing him closer. Coaxing him out of himself, from beyond that defensive wall.

“Yes,” he says above him. “Fuck, Damen. _Yes.”_

“Laurent,” he whispers, his own hips rising and falling. "This is how it is."

And Laurent smiles, a vision above him, spilling into his hand as he thrusts, head rolling back in bliss.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Later, after Damen has chased his own end to its delicious conclusion, they lie on their stomachs looking at each other, heads propped on folded arms. Damen feels like a boy again, swapping secrets long after he should have gone to sleep.

_Now. Tell him now._

_Ask him if he wants more than this._

It’s Laurent who speaks first. “Tell me, what comes next in this fantasy of yours?”

Laurent is relaxed, glowing with pleasure. _I don’t want to think_ — he's said that before. But he’s thinking now, and it sparks hope within Damen. He feels his cock stir as he glances along the length of Laurent’s back, the casual shift of his weight. He’ll want to fuck soon.

He considers Laurent words. _This fantasy._ A story woven from Damen’s imagination that he can only play along with, and pray it ends in truth.

“Well...let’s see. We fall asleep.” He moves to kiss Laurent’s ear. “Eventually. In the morning, I ask you to breakfast, and you say yes — we go to a place by the beachfront. Pancakes, coffee...whatever you like. After that, we walk by the sea. Everyone’s watching and nobody sees.”

Laurent sighs, and it’s a thoroughly contented sound. Damen wants to hear it again. 

“Nobody sees...and if they did, what would they say? The newspapers, vultures circling...the great Lion of Akielos, losing it all for a walk by the sea. For this?”

_For this._

Damen’s hand drifts between Laurent’s legs, thighs parting in response as his knees press into the mattress. He pushes back against Damen’s fingers, fists bunching into the sheets. Damen finds him hot and wanting. He shifts onto his own knees and readies himself for the long, unending torture that is those first few moments, pressing into Laurent.

_For you._

Later, when he slides inside again — one long, profound movement — Laurent cries something incomprehensible into the pillow. Damen wraps an arm around Laurent’s chest, his other hand moving down to find Laurent hard, already thrusting against the sheets.

His skin on Laurent’s skin, hearing his own name pronounced in the ways he likes best. They won’t go slowly this time, chasing pleasure with a greater sense of urgency, hands and fingers tangling, words tumbling in their own languages and then each other’s.

“For you,” he says, breath hot against Laurent’s neck. “I’d lose it all for you.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


When morning comes it brings the sun, spilling through gaps in the curtains. Damen stirs, running a hand over his face. The bed is empty beside him.

As per the unspoken agreement, Laurent is long gone.

He sighs, the sunbeams on the ceiling a suitable backdrop to replay last night and its many perfect endings. Damen feels sticky, supple — he didn’t rise to clean after sex, falling into a deep sleep instead. One arm pulled Laurent against him, his hair tickling his nose.

He looks at his empty bedroom, the clothes still strewn across the carpet. He frowns at a flash of white amidst the familiar drapes of black — isn’t that the shirt he bought?

_Does this mean..._

“Awake, are we? I feared you’d sleep the day away.”

Damen jolts upright at the sight of Laurent propped in the doorway, wearing his blue jumper and little else. He’s holding two steaming mugs — Damen wonders if he fell for the expensive coffee sitting unopened on the counter, or if he went for the instant stuff Damen secretly prefers, stashed in a high cupboard.

“You’re still here.”

Laurent raises an eyebrow, a flash of vulnerability hidden behind insouciance as he saunters over, pretending to trip on the trail of clothes. Damen reaches for the mugs, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Then he’s reaching up again, arm looping around Laurent’s waist, pulling him hard enough to send them both tumbling back onto the mattress. They end in a heap, Laurent laughing, his face hovering an inch above Damen’s.

He touches his nose to Damen’s cheek. “Disappointed? I haven’t tried these fabled pancakes of yours. I’m beginning to think they don’t exist.”

Damen lets it take him, the surprise. The blind hope that Laurent might not, after all, have merely been lost to a fantasy.

“The pancakes exist,” he says cautiously. “As does the sea. A safe route there without being seen...that’s another story.”

Laurent’s lips curl in amusement as he reaches over Damen, straddling him in his quest to drink his coffee before it can become anything less than scalding.

“I’ll have you know I’m a master of disguise.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I’ve not been caught once, this past year. Neither have you. What’s your secret? Mine’s entrusting my life to a crafter of fake moustaches.”

Damen barks laughter, taking Laurent’s mug and stealing a sip for himself, bitter and sweet coating his tongue. _He found the instant coffee._ He pulls Laurent into an embrace, thrilled that he’s _here_ , wrapped up in his arms. The whistle hasn’t found them yet.

_We’re into extra time._

“Generous bribes,” he says, after thinking it over. Laurent laughs, high and free and delighted.

“A fair tactic. Tell me, do you have a Vere away shirt hanging in one of your many wardrobes? The press would _never_ believe you’d stoop so low. To be caught dead in the enemy’s colours…”

Damen shakes his head, winding his fingers into the back of Laurent’s jumper, feeling skin warming beneath his fingertips.

_Are we really going to do this?_

_Can he want this as much as I do?_

“What time do you have to go?” he murmurs. “I’m serious about breakfast. If you are.”

A moment of quiet. Then, in hushed tones, an answer.

“Nobody will miss me until afternoon. They’ll assume I drank myself into a coma after yesterday’s loss.”

Damen feels relief wash over him in a rush. _He came. He’s still here._ He finds himself saying something foolish and brave. “I’ll take you there; my driver can be outside within minutes.”

Laurent looks at him, and Damen can’t tell if he’s afraid or amused, or both. He’s mollified by the soft kiss that greets him.

“I do like pancakes. And I’d like to see the sea with you,” Laurent replies. Nervously, tentatively. There’s a lot wrapped up in such words — the risk of being seen, the carnage sure to follow. “I expect you'll want to bend me over that rather bland-looking sofa of yours, first. Work up an appetite. Then, if we’re in need of a disguise, perhaps you can call Nikandros and ask for a pair of his —”

Damen growls into his mouth, tasting cheap coffee and something deeper, something sweet beyond description. Laurent kisses him back, still laughing, hands cupping his cheeks. Damen doesn’t dare ask again, in case this time he says no.

Instead he thinks, _he wants to see the sea._

  
  


* * *

  
  


The sun glitters, scattering into shards atop cresting waves that rise and fall to kiss the shore.

Damen stands, shoes abandoned in the car, digging his toes into the sand. In one hand there’s the remains of the morning’s second coffee, and in the other is someone else’s fingers, tracing patterns on his wrist.

The pancakes were good. The exhilaration he felt climbing from the car to order them, the shock of recognition crossing the café worker’s face...that was even better. Best of all came as he turned to join Laurent at a wobbly table outside, plastic cutlery at the ready.

 _“Are we starting something?”_ Damen had asked, searching his face.

 _“My dear Akielon,”_ Laurent had replied, pouring half a bottle of syrup over his pancakes. _“It started long ago.”_

They stand together now in the shade, facing the sea and its possibilities. He doesn’t look to see who might be watching. Damen thought he saw someone at the café raising their phone to take a photo, and others have gathered since then. His phone was burdened with Nik’s missed calls this morning — several from late last night, one more shortly after they’d finished the last bite of maple and butter. Perhaps Damen is already on the news, Nikandros currently raising an army to pull him from his madness.

Laurent doesn’t seem nervous anymore. He’s standing here in Damen’s clothes — far too loose on him, all sorts of wrong colours — with an Akielos F.C. cap pulled low over his eyes. Wisps of blond poke out on one side — if someone peers too closely, it won’t fool them for long. The identity of Damen’s mysterious lover, already bound to be splashed across the tabloids by afternoon, will be swiftly exposed.

They’ve already agreed to see each other in a week, in a hotel on the Vaskian border — after Vere have hopefully won a tournament, and Akielos have secured the league. _“I’ll take you to dinner,”_ Laurent had said, _“to repay you for breakfast.”_

After that, a long summer between seasons awaits. Who’s to say when Damen will be able to commit to a training schedule?

“You’re thinking again,” Laurent murmurs, looking up from beneath the peak of his cap. Damen can’t decide if he’s enjoying being dressed this preposterously, or if he’s going to hold it against him for all eternity. “Let’s not.”

Damen smiles.

He _isn’t_ thinking. He’s looking forward. To truths, to a conversation.

He’s hoping.

Laurent walks ahead of him on the beach, and turns to hold out a hand. Behind him, the sea is blue spilt on blue. Gulls swoop overhead. Damen hears a car idling. A woman laughing. A sudden, inescapable burst of clarity.

_This. This is what it is, and all we will be._

Damen takes Laurent’s hand, and follows him into the light of day.

**Author's Note:**

> Text version of the newspaper headline:
> 
>  **HEAR THEM ROAR!**  
>  _Akielos F.C. 3 - 2 Vere Wanderers_  
>  Reigning champions crush arch-rivals in stunning display  
> Lion of Akielos scores a last-minute screamer to secure a crucial three points,  
> and extend AFC’s lead at the top of the table. . .


End file.
